The invention relates to product delivery and in particular to a method, system and storage medium for viewing product delivery information. In today""s business world, customer satisfaction is crucial to the success of any enterprise. A key source of customer dissatisfaction is errors in delivering products to the customer. Often a customer requires a product delivered on a requested date and often at a requested time. The ability to meet this requested delivery date is important in maintaining customer satisfaction. Products arriving at the customer prior to the requested delivery date can result in storage problems for the customer who lacks space to store the product. Products arriving at the customer after the requested delivery date can cause delays in the customer""s business. Accordingly, meeting the requested delivery date is crucial to maintaining customer satisfaction.
Sales over the Internet have also forced product providers to meet increasingly higher demands from consumers. Such high volume purchasing can overwhelm product suppliers. For example, in December 1999, Toys R Us notified shoppers of toysrus.com that holiday gifts would not be delivered to the customer until after Dec. 25, 1999. With on-line shopping services becoming increasingly available, customers can easily direct their business to competitors when requested delivery dates are not met. These demands on product providers to deliver products to customers on the requested delivery date have created a need for a method and system for viewing product delivery information so that the product delivery process can be improved.
An exemplary embodiment of the invention is a method for providing information on product delivery in a system having a user system coupled to a host system through a network and a database coupled to the host system. The method includes receiving at the host system a request from a user system for a product delivery report. Order data from the database is obtained in response to the request and a product delivery report is generated in response to the order data. The order data includes a requested deli very date for at least one order and the product delivery report contains a span value for one or more orders. The span value is determined in response to the requested delivery date. The product delivery report is provided to the user system. Further embodiments include a system and storage medium for implementing the method.